


Waiting For Something To Startle

by dfotw



Series: The Sleeping Hours Are Through - An Avengers Soulmate AU [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Friendship, Hypothermia, M/M, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 09:57:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4602417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dfotw/pseuds/dfotw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having Loki as a soulmate was the end of Steve's loneliness, sure, but also the beginning of a whole other series of problems, particularly when Loki tried to give him a gift worth of their relationship.<br/><br/><em>“I tried to be kind,” said Loki. “A mistake, to be sure. I have no talent for it.”</em><br/><em>It was cruel, but it was true that Loki didn't do kindness very well. Lack of practice, thought Steve loyally.</em><br/><br/>WARNING: this fic is unfinished and will remain so for the foreseeable future!<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting For Something To Startle

**Author's Note:**

> Due to popular demand, and because I feel horrible every time I get a comment on TLHAW asking about Natasha's soulmate, here's my best attempt at writing what happened to Bucky. This was written a couple of years ago, so it's not CA:tWS or TA:AoU compliant.  
> It's necessary to read 'The Lines, Here Are Written' first for this to make (some kind of) sense.  
> WARNING: this fic is unfinished and highly unlikely to ever be continued. Read at your own risk!

_The sorry conclusion, the low dirty war,_  
_It happened before you came to,_  
_But this is solution, and this is amends:_  
_The joke always tends to come true..._  


Experience had taught Steve that calls from S.H.I.E.L.D. led to consequences that ranged from bad through terrible and all the way to 'possible end of the world scenario', so when Subdirector Maria Hill left him a message asking him to make his way to the nearest S.H.I.E.L.D. station immediately, Steve only stopped to grab his jacket before making his way to the car that was already waiting for him outside Stark Tower.

It might have been nothing but a routine reconnaissance mission or an urgent budget request, but Steve's shoulders were already tense in preparation for battle; he wished Loki was there, to stand besides him whatever the new threat turned out to be.

But Loki had left days before, without saying where he was going or when he was returning, or leaving Steve a way to contact him. It was his modus operandi, and one that S.H.I.E.L.D. seemed to approve of; as long as Loki didn’t do anything clearly villainous out in the open, and offered his help to The Avengers in magical matters, they turned a blind eye when he went away on mysterious errands and didn’t blame Steve for his rather unusual soulmate.

Steve turned the soft leather cuff he wore around the markings on his wrist, and hoped that Loki would materialise by his side all of a sudden, like he did sometimes; maybe the lure of startling some S.H.I.E.L.D. agents with his abrupt appearance would bring him where Steve’s own desire wouldn’t.

By the time he reached Subdirector Hill’s office, Loki still hadn’t appeared, and Steve was forced to shift his focus to whatever had made S.H.I.E.L.D. summon him so urgently.

“Captain Rogers.” Maria Hill was pacing behind her desk, and Steve’s stomach tightened; something was definitely wrong. “Come with me, please. There’s something you need to see.”

Whatever it was, it was in the lower levels, where Steve hadn’t been since he woke up in a white room and escaped into the city above, sixty years into the future; he suppressed a shiver and squared his shoulders in preparation for the worst.

“We have a prisoner exchange programme with several countries,” Subdirector Hill said as she led the way. “We don’t use it much these days, because God knows not many of our agents get captured, but with the recent Anne Chapman scandal and all, well...” Hill stopped in front of a door, gave Steve a hesitant look. “The Russians thought we’d like to retrieve this.”

They walked into a dark, narrow room with a large glass window: the back of a one-way mirror into an interrogation room. Sitting at the table in the next room, pale, long-haired, unshaven and grim, was…

“Bucky!”

Maria Hill held onto his arm when Steve made for the door.

“How?” he said, stopping more because he didn't want to hurt her that because her hand on his forearm could have stopped him. “What happened? Is... is it really him?”

“Yes, we think it’s really Sergeant Barnes,” she said, her voice steady, leading Steve back into the room; he gratefully leant on the edge of a desk, his knees weak. “But until we can ascertain what's really happened, we need to take precautions. The Russians say they found him, cryogenically frozen, in an abandoned lab of which there was no record. We don’t know how he came to be there. He says he can’t remember.”

“You think he could be compromised?”

“Yes.” Hill didn’t even bother to look apologetic. “And there’s something else.”

With shaking hands, Steve took the file Hill offered him, looking up from it every thirty seconds to make sure Bucky was still sitting in the next room, glaring at the tabletop. 

According to the information they had sent along with Bucky, the Russians had thawed him out and questioned him for almost a year until the Illegals Program forced them to rustle up something which would interest the US enough to exchange for ten well-publicised spies. Apparently, Bucky was gruff and uncommunicative when questioned (Steve wasn’t surprised). Yes, he remembered World War II and falling to his death; no, he didn’t remember what had happened in between; no, he didn’t remember how he had lost his arm.

“He what?!”

“His left arm,” Maria Hill confirmed, with a grimace; she had been reading over Steve’s shoulder. “The Russians had been experimenting with some bionic implants on him.”

Steve took a deep breath. This was almost more surreal than waking up seventy years into the future.

“Can I talk to him?”

Subdirector Hill nodded.

“Of course. But, please, be careful until we know what’s going on.”

Steve was already at the door, waiting for her to type in the security code. He remembered when he'd woken up, the panic and the confusion and the vain wish there was someone who understood; what it must have felt like for Bucky, in enemy hands, he didn’t want to think.

“Hey,” he said, with a quavering voice, when the door to the interrogation room closed behind him.

Bucky looked up.

“Steve?!”

“Bucky!”

Bucky leapt over the table and was across the room in a second. Steve heard Hill gasp and draw her weapon on the other side of the door, but he didn't hesitate to open his arms. Bucky hugged him fiercely, and he felt solid in Steve's arms, real.

“I thought you were dead, buddy,” Bucky rasped out after a minute, stepping back from the hug.

“So did I,” answered Steve with a watery laugh. “We have got to stop meeting like this.”

“How the Hell are you still here?” Bucky gave him an appraising look, tinged with thinly veiled suspicion.

“I…” Steve shrugged, feeling self-conscious. “I went down in the ice not long after you did. They found me three years ago. We're kind of in the same boat again, I guess.”

“What happened to you?”

Steve remembered Maria Hill’s warning, but this was Bucky, looking at him with bright eyes and a crooked smile in a face that looked both better and worse than when he’d rescued him from that HYDRA cell. So, Steve sat down and told him his story, from that fateful plane ride to waking up in S.H.I.E.L.D.’s custody to Loki’s irruption in his life.

“So, that’s the…” Bucky’s eyes went to Steve’s wrist; for a horrible moment, Steve feared his friend would disapprove, but then Bucky threw his head back and laughed. “Only you, buddy, would never manage to so much as speak to a dame but end up bagging a god.”

Steve laughed along because, finally, he could share the joy of having found his soulmate with someone who would appreciate how fantastic and improbable it was. At least, until he remembered to look at Bucky’s left wrist and found shiny metal instead.

“And what about you?” he blurted out, then winced when he remembered where they were; he had no illusions as to what privacy S.H.I.E.L.D. was giving them.

Bucky’s eyes went to the metallic arm that filled his left sleeve, and he shrugged.

“There's not much to tell. I don't remember much and it seems I've missed a lot.” Bucky still didn't meet Steve's eyes. “Maybe I also missed my girl in the years I wasn’t here.”

“Well, you’re here now,” Steve said, determined to be cheerful. “We’ll see what we can do.”

Steve himself could do very little, other than reassure Subdirector Hill that Bucky seemed to still be himself and not a danger to others, but he knew who could do more.

Tony Stark lit up with possibilities when Steve mentioned the issue to him.

“A Russian bionic arm? I need to see that. Cover your patriotic little ears, but back during the Cold War they were well ahead of us in some areas...” Tony trailed off, bringing up at least ten screens. “Bruce, we should get Bruce to help, I bet he knows more about nerve reassignment than Doctor Hargrove. And think of the modifications we could make, both to the suit and to the arm, a joint Russo-American venture without the Russians poking their noses in...”

Tony deemed Bucky's arm even better than he expected, and he talked Fury into ‘letting them use Barnes as a guinea-pig, as long as they were going to keep him in a cage’. Steve spent lots of time in that unpleasant S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, keeping Bucky company, talking about the old times and the new, and waiting while doctors and psychologists poked and probed at his friend.

In all that time, Loki didn’t appear even once.

It wasn’t the longest time he’d been away from Steve since they had discovered they were soulmates, or the longest he’d been gone without letting anyone know of his whereabouts, but Steve missed him all the same. He wanted to tell Loki about Bucky and then introduce the two and watch the sparks fly (they would hate each other at first sight, he knew they would, but it would be alright because they'd come to a grudging truce in the end).

But Loki didn’t appear.

“He does that, sometimes,” Steve said, trying to appear unconcerned, when Bucky asked; Fury had agreed to let him move into Stark Tower, nominally to let Tony and Bruce monitor his new bionic limb more closely. “Goes off-planet to do God knows what.”

“Off-planet?”

“To Asgard. Or, you know, wherever. I don’t ask.”

Bucky gave him a shrewd look, looking up from the stress ball he was testing with his new, metallic arm.

“Don’t you want to know?”

Steve shrugged.

“Maybe it’s better if I don’t.”

“Steve, if you really believed your soulmate was up to his ears in some nefarious plot, you’d be all over that.”

“He’s not, of course he’s not.” Steve paused and felt compelled to add, “Even though he tried once.”

“So?”

Steve sighed and rested his chin on his knees, feeling small and young again, going to his more experienced friend with his problems. 

“You’ll understand when you meet him. He might not be exactly a god, but he’s something else, and I... I’m just a kid from Brooklyn.” 

“Careful, buddy, it looks like you’re fishing for compliments there.” Bucky jabbed him in the side with his new elbow, sending Steve toppling over the side of the couch, and soon they were tousling all over the living room, conversation nearly forgotten.

Later, after they straightened up the overturned furniture and made their way to the kitchen for a snack, Bucky tapped on the table with metal fingers.

“So, it’s just you here? And Loki, when he visits?”

“What?” Steve looked up from the frying eggs. “No, not at all. I mean, it’s Tony’s place, really. He just spends most of his time in his workshop. He’s there now, he said something about the hydraulics in your elbow, I think. And Bruce also lives here, I mean, sometimes, when he’s not in India doing charity work. And Thor, Loki's... um, Thor, when he's not with his girlfriend. And Clint, you'll like him, but right now he's doing some work for S.H.I.E.L.D. in Alaska. And Natasha, who is on a deep-cover mission in Sweden right now, I think.”

“Natasha?” Bucky's eyebrows rose.

“Natasha Romanoff.” Steve turned down the stove. “She's Russian. But she's one of us! Of The Avengers, I mean. She's not...”

Steve tried to find a way to reassure Bucky that didn't mean he had to lie about Black Widow's not-sterling past. ‘She’s an assassin and a spy and I know you’ve just been released out of captivity from the Russians, but she’s nice!’ didn’t seem very convincing.

“She must be some dame, to keep all you in line,” Bucky said with a smile, and Steve grinned back, relieved to see his friend would let him off the hook, as always.

“She’s the scariest person I’ve ever met,” Steve admitted, passing Bucky his plate.

“Scarier than Peggy?” Steve felt his face freeze at Bucky's question. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean…”

“No, no, it’s fine.” Steve stared at the salt shaker in his hand for a moment. “I saw Peggy, you know? After I came back.”

“Really? How is she?”

“She’s gone now,” Steve said softly; the news had come six months before, and he’d sat for a night on the terrace, with Loki silent by his side, in remembrance. “But I went to visit her in England, after the thing with Loki and the Chitauri. First thing she did was slap me, for having stood her up for seventy years.”

Bucky laughed.

“I mean, for a time then, I though she was your…” Bucky gestured at Steve’s wrist.

“No, no. I don’t think she ever found whoever it was. But she married, after the war.” Steve looked around to check no one was listening, a hard habit to break. “She was the head of the British Secret Service.”

“You’re kidding,” said Bucky. “Well, no, I believe you. If anything, I’m surprised she didn’t get to be the Queen. Scariest dame I ever met.”

“Wait ‘til you meet Natasha,” Steve laughed. “Seriously, be nice to her or she’ll break your arm. Yes, the new one.”

“Sounds like my kinda challenge.” Bucky laughed at Steve’s comment about his arm and got to eating, and for a moment it was as if the last seventy years hadn’t happened.

It wasn't long before Bucky became drinking buddies with Tony, charmed Pepper like he’d done so many women before her, and seemed so comfortable with his new Stark Arm that Fury was starting to make noises about adding him to the Avengers roster.

And then Loki came back.

“Loki!” Steve stood up, and his paper and charcoals went flying to the floor. “What happened?”

“I’m fine,” said Loki slowly, leaning against the door frame, although he obviously wasn’t.

He was pale as bone, to start with, his skin waxy and tight over his cheekbones; his eyes were bruised with exhaustion, his lips cracked, his knuckles bloodied. Steve moved to gather him in his arms, and confirmation of how bad it was came when Loki surrendered to the embrace with no complaints, letting his head fall on Steve’s shoulder.

“Hey,” Steve said softly, lips brushing against Loki’s cold cheek. “You’re freezing. Let’s get these off you.” 

Steve led an unresisting Loki to the bed, and started on the now-familiar process of unbuckling his armour. 

“You’re freezing,” he repeated as he touched Loki's bruised, clammy skin. “You’re not supposed to be so cold in this shape, where were you?”

“In Hel,” whispered Loki.

“In Hell?!”

“Hel,” Loki corrected him. “Another realm.”

“A cold one, I’m thinking?”

“So cold…”

Steve knew first hand how cold Loki was when he was in Jotun shape, and also the kind of physical challenges that he and Thor were capable of shrugging off as it were nothing; for Loki to be like this, something horrible must have happened to (or around) him.

“Come on.” 

Loki was slow and uncoordinated, but Steve managed to get him under the blankets without pressing on any of the many bruises that marred his pale skin. At least his experiences in Austria had left him with a working knowledge of what to do in cases of hypothermia.

“You’re okay,” Steve murmured, brushing a strand of hair from Loki's face. “You’re here, you’re okay.”

“I cannot tell if you are reassuring me or yourself,” said Loki between cracked lips, his eyes falling closed.

“I’m glad you’re feeling fine enough to mistrust my motives,” Steve replied with a smile, gently wiping grey dust from Loki’s face with the back of his hand.

“Your motives?” Loki opened his eyes, startingly green under his bruised eyelids. “Never.”

“You say the sweetest things.” Steve hesitated only a second before leaning in and pressing a chaste kiss to Loki’s lips. “Do you want to tell me what happened?”

Loki closed his eyes again, leaning into Steve’s touch; his breathing was starting to deepen.

“A year ago, I asked for a favour and it was granted to me,” Loki said, his voice barely a whisper. “I was asked to repay the favour now.”

“What kind of favour? Who did you ask?” Steve asked; a year before, they’d already been together, and Steve couldn’t think of an occasion when Loki could have incurred into what seemed a massive debt.

Then again, he didn’t flatter himself by thinking he knew all of Loki’s secrets.

“The debt is paid,” Loki murmured, instead of answering Steve’s questions; he did that a lot. “If the scientists of this world wonder why a star has shifted, let them wonder.”

“You moved a star?” 

Loki smiled faintly; Steve knew he sounded as impressed as he never was when Tony held a demonstration for one of his new gadgets or Clint took him out to ‘show him the twenty-first century’. 

“Amongst other things.” 

“Well, gee…” But there were bruises on Loki’s skin, traces of wounds he hadn’t been strong enough to heal by himself, and Steve forgot about stars, except to make a mental not to ask JARVIS later to confirm if any astronomers had noticed a star moving out of position. “Will you be alright?”

“Yes,” Loki said, resting a thin hand on Steve’s knee. “I will be fine. I only need to regain my strength.”

He had come to Steve, weak and vulnerable, to recover. What more could Steve ask for? He needed trust, and Loki trusted him, with his life and person if not with his secrets. It was enough.

“You’ll need food, and then sleep,” he decided. “JARVIS, is there any food in the house?”

“Of course, Captain. But would you like me to order a delivery instead? I have yours and Master Laufeyson’s menu choices on file.”

Usually Steve preferred to cook, but that would mean leaving Loki alone.

“That’d be great, JARVIS, thank you.”

“My pleasure, Captain.”

“If you’re ordering Chinese food, get some of those shrimp crackers,” Loki said, demanding even when he looked like death thawing amongst the white cotton sheets.

“Certainly, Master Laufeyson.”

“Will you be alright just resting here? I can go and make some of that coffee you like, a hot drink will be good for you right now.”

“I will be fine,” sighed Loki, turning his face into the pillow; he looked better than at his arrival, but he was still almost as pale as the sheets themselves.

“If it was so cold, why weren't you in Jotun form?” Steve asked, hesitating before leaving the room.

Loki laughed, a cracked sound that degenerated into a painful bout of coughing. Steve helped him sit up, then stayed there, sitting on the edge of the bed, one arm around Loki's trembling shoulders.

“Others are not so tolerant of my many forms as you are,” said Loki when he recovered his breath.

“I know that,” said Steve. “But some disapproval is still better than hypothermia.”

“Some disapproval?” Loki smiled. “Need I remind you that many would kill Frost Giants on sight? And, in any case, not even my Jotun form would have helped me there. Can I have some coffee now?”

Steve knew a diversion when he heard it, but Loki had just now started to shiver helplessly, so he tucked him back under the blankets and made his way to the kitchen.

There was a note on the whiteboard over the fridge, in Tony's messy handwriting: 'Natasha's mission went boom, she's been extracted, should be here tonight. DO NOT eat the ice cream on the freezer, she doesn't need an excuse to kill you'.

Tony had called Steve 'whipped' when he'd come back from a meeting to find JARVIS instructing Steve on how to make a good mocha, but Pepper had said she thought it was sweet, so -just like Tony made sure they were stocked on Natasha's favourite ice cream for her return-, he always made sure that they had the coffee that Loki preferred.

Steve was coating the bottom of a large travel mug with chocolate syrup when Bucky walked into the kitchen.

“Is that dessert?” he asked, clapping Steve on the shoulder with his non-metallic hand. “You didn't use to have much of a sweet tooth.”

“It's not for me. Loki is back,” Steve said. “I'm making him some coffee.”

“Is he OK?” Bucky asked, still capable of seeing right through Steve.

“Ye-es,” Steve said, turning his attention to the automated coffee machine; he knew Loki would not appreciate anyone knowing just how vulnerable he was at the moment. “But maybe the introductions can wait until tomorrow, yes?”

“Hey.” Bucky stepped back, grinning and holding his hands up. “Far be it from me to stand between a man and his soulmate. You go and get yourselves reacquainted, I can wait.” 

“Gee, Bucky, it's not like that!” Steve protested, feeling himself blush.

“Whatever you say, Steve,” Bucky said as they heard door to the elevator open.

“Must be dinner,” said Steve, putting the lid on the mocha.

“Chinese, Cap?” asked Natasha, coming into the kitchen.

She stopped in the doorway, plastic bags in her hand, and stared. Steve could see the pulse at her white throat, usually so steady, fluttering in panic.

“Natasha!” said Steve. “It's good to have you back. This is Bucky. You know, my friend Bucky Barnes. It's a long story, but...”

Natasha fled the kitchen with a rustle of plastic bags.

“Er,” said Steve. “Natasha?”

“Miss Romanoff has exited the penthouse via the emergency exit, Captain,” JARVIS informed him. “She has left the food on the coffee table,” he added helpfully.

“I don't usually make dames run like that, at least not before I've been introduced,” said Bucky.

“I'm sorry. I don't know what happened. She comes from a tough mission and seeing a stranger here must have startled her.”

“Don't worry, Steve. Take the food and the coffee, and go hole yourself away with your soulmate. There's a beer with my name on it in the fridge.”

Steve wanted to find Natasha and ask what was wrong, and he wanted to stay with Bucky and keep him company through an evening of trying to fit into a different time, but Loki needed him, so he gave his best friend a sheepish smile and made his way to his bedroom, retrieving the food on the way.

Loki was half-asleep, curled up under the blankets, shivering violently.

“Hey,” Steve said softly. “I have your coffee. Can you sit up?”

“I'm not an invalid,” Loki croaked, pushing himself up, and starting to look into the bags of food while Steve arranged the pillows behind him.

“Drink your coffee first, we need to raise your core temperature, you're still shaking.”

Loki took the cup of coffee, grabbed a handful of shrimp crackers, and gave Steve an amused look.

“Do you mortals not know that the best way to warm up someone suffering from the cold is to share body heat?”

“Glad to see you're feeling better,” Steve replied dryly, but he pulled off his shirt and trousers, and slid into the bed. “Gosh, you're still freezing.”

“Mmmm,” hummed Loki, moving closer.

“You're going leave crumbs on the sheets,” complained Steve half-heartedly as Loki munched on his shrimp crackers. 

“Not the worst thing I've done lately,” Loki murmured, reaching for one of the cartons of food with hands that still shook. “Surely you can indulge me in this at least?”

“Because I don't indulge you enough already?” 

Steve arranged them so that he could sit behind Loki, and encouraged him to lean back on Steve's chest; Loki's skin was still much colder than it should be, and strangely-shaped bruises marked the pale planes of his back.

“You're not injured, are you?” he asked, helping Loki spread the cartons of food within reach. 

Loki shook his head and continued to devote his attention to the food; he ate like a famished wolf, or someone who hadn't had anything to eat for ages. If it was cold enough to give Loki hypothermia, Steve reasoned, Hel couldn't be a hospitable place.

“You didn't eat anything at all while you were gone, did you?”

Loki shook his head again.

“I meant to return,” he said petulantly, washing down a mouthful of fried rice with some coffee. “You don't eat the food in Hel if you have a reason to return to the real world, and I do.”

Others would never hear this, Steve thought. Others would never witness the casual way Loki expressed his affection, dropping comments like that in normal conversation and then turning around to do something deliberately mischievous to divert Steve's attention.

In a way, it was very much like owning a cat.

Steve caught a carton of dan-dan noodles before it tipped over and went all over the sheets, and then leant in and pressed his lips to Loki's naked shoulder.

“Bucky is back,” he said, after Loki had demolished half their order and had settled more comfortably against Steve's chest, cradling a carton of tea-smoked duck.

Loki stilled immediately, his body going tense against Steve, except for a series of small shivers.

“My friend from before the war, remember?” Steve continued, running a soothing hand up and down Loki's arm. “The Russians found him and sent him back as part of a prisoner exchange programme. He's living here in the Tower now.”

Loki relaxed slowly, by increments.

“Tell me more,” he demanded, and went back to eating.

So, Steve told him everything, from Subdirector Hill's call to Tony losing a month's worth of nighttime patrols from betting on the Hulk arm-wrestling against Bucky. And, since Loki always listened without judgement, Steve also told him about his fears that Bucky might have been tortured by the Russians, about his guilt for not having known about his return before, about his concerns that Bucky would never adapt to the future, about the relief of having someone who understood how disconcerting their situation seemed sometimes.

“You are pleased, then,” said Loki when Steve stopped talking, thirty minutes later.

“Of course I am. Bucky getting a second chance at life is like a miracle. I never forgave myself for not being able to do anything for him back then.”

“Mmmm.”

Loki's eyes were drooping; his skin was rosy and warm, and he had stopped shivering.

“Sleep,” Steve told him. “You can meet Bucky tomorrow.”

When Loki dropped off, Steve got up, got dressed again, picked up the empty cartons and went put them away. The Tower was silent, all lights were off; Steve nearly had a heart-attack when he came upon Natasha sitting on of the kitchen stools, still and silent as a statue, staring at a tablet in front of her.

“Hey,” Steve said softly. He hadn't been quiet, but if she was upset, Natasha might not have heard him and he didn't want to startle her; Bruce had managed to startle her once (by accident!) and it had taken them five days to repair the elevator shaft.

She looked up and gave him a wan smile.

“Hey.”

“Are you alright?”

Natasha nodded.

“I'm sorry if seeing Bucky startled you,” Steve continued, sorting the empty boxes into the recyclable trash. “He's been staying at the Tower for a few days, but I guess you were abroad and they didn't tell you.”

Natasha didn't answer. Steve looked around for inspiration, and came across Tony's note on the whiteboard

“Tony bought some ice cream,” he said, opening the freezer. “Do you want some?”

This time, Natasha's answering smile was more genuine; she nodded, and took the spoon and carton of ice cream Steve offered her.

Before Steve and Loki had come together (and sometimes after, when their differences became too much, or Loki was away on his mysterious trips), Steve roamed the Tower at night, and on occasion met Natasha doing the same. It wasn't a tradition per se, but it wasn't unusual for them to sit in silence, pretending to watch TV or look out of the window, keeping each other company.

Now Loki was sleeping in Steve's bed, safe and warm. Steve pulled a stool closer to the kitchen table, took a seat, and began to peel an apple. Whatever Natasha's mission had been, it had obviously shaken her, and with Clint away, Natasha needed to know she wasn't alone.

They ate in silence for a while. Half-way through the carton of ice cream, Natasha looked up. Steve noticed then that the tablet in front of her was displaying the file on Bucky that Subdirector Hill had shown him on the day of his return.

“I told you my soulmate was dead,” Natasha said, and Steve nodded. “I found out when I was ten. They told me, the people who brought me up in the Red Room. I changed my name then. It just didn't seem important any more.”

“I can imagine,” Steve said, and it wasn't a platitude; he'd also believed for years that he would never meet his soulmate.

“Yes,” Natasha said. “I imagine you can.”

They were silent again for a few minutes. Then, Natasha dropped the spoon into the now-empty carton of ice cream, and began to undo the weaponised cuff on her left wrist.

“Natasha...” Steve started saying, but he didn't stumble away like he would have years before. He recognised the desire to have another human being know that most intimate of secrets, even if it led to nothing; he had told Bucky, hadn't he? 

“I trust you,” Natasha said, though her fingers were still covering the words on her wrist. “With this, at least, I trust you.”

“Thank you?” Steve said, and kept his eyes trained firmly away from Natasha's wrist, in case she changed her mind.

Natasha was looking at her fingers covering her wrist, her eyes shiny.

“I could just say nothing,” she said.

“Yes,” Steve agreed. “You could tell no one, and at least you'd be spared the pity every time the subject came up.”

Natasha smiled, probably recognising that Steve spoke from experience.

“Did you ever show someone? Before you met Loki?”

“Bucky,” Steve admitted. “Mine isn't recognisable letters and, well, I wanted someone to share the confusion with me, I guess.”

Natasha nodded thoughtfully, still covering her wrist.

“Clint might be back soon,” Steve said. “If you'd rather talk to him. I could ask Fury to bring him back, if you need to...?”

“No,” Natasha interrupted. “No, it's fine. If someone has to see this, you're probably the best choice.”

“No one has to,” Steve reminded her. “It's your choice.”

Natasha shook her head.

“I erased all my records,” she said. “Everyone who knew me as a child is dead. I want someone to know.”

“I understand,” said Steve. “I'll keep your secret.”

Again, Natasha smiled at him.

“I know you will,” she said, and finally showed him her wrist.

Steve stared for a minute, then looked up to Natasha's face. He felt his face stretch in a smile as wide as those only Loki (or Bucky) elicited on him.

“It's Bucky,” he whispered. “Natasha, it's Bucky.”

“I know,” she whispered back.

“So, that's why they told you he was dead. But he isn't, Natasha, he isn't.”

“I know,” she repeated, looking more terrified than pleased.

“Gee, no wonder you were so surprised when you came into the kitchen tonight. Are you going to tell him?”

“Tell him?” Natasha echoed.

“You said no one knows your real name. He won't know it's you he's been looking for unless you tell him. And, you know...” Steve gestured at his own arm, his own cuff, both things Bucky didn't have now. “He doesn't have his mark any more.”

“He doesn't have his mark any more,” Natasha said. “Then how will I know...?”

“Natasha, of course it has to be you,” Steve said immediately. “That's how things work. You have someone's mark, that someone has yours.”

“It doesn't always work that way,” Natasha interrupted him, putting on her cuff again. “Take Thor. He has an Asgardian's mark, but Jane Foster has his name on her wrist.”

Steve prudently decided not to ask how Natasha knew this most intimate of details.

“But Thor loves Doctor Foster. Maybe things work differently with Asgardians, but you can't tell me he doesn't love her,” he argued, struggling to come up with more arguments in his favour. “And Bucky... he never showed me his mark, of course, but he did use to hang around Brighton Beach a lot, and now I know why.”

Natasha smiled faintly, but shook her head.

“You won't tell him,” she said, not a question.

“I won't tell him,” Steve agreed. “And I understand if you need to take your time and think about it. I did the same, even you called me up on it, remember?” Natasha nodded. “But tell him, Natasha. Don't take this away from him, and from you. You two could be great for each other, I just know it.”

Natasha's gaze drifted towards her right; maybe thinking of Loki, of Loki and Steve and how they had managed to make things work, somehow.

“This is about more than just our marks,” Natasha said after a moment, fixing Steve with her gimlet gaze. “There are things in my past that...”

Steve sighed, remembering similar arguments coming from Loki's mouth.

“Bucky is a good man, but he's a soldier,” he said. “He'll understand more than you think.”

Natasha smiled mirthlessly, but didn't answer.

“I understand if there are things you're not comfortable telling me,” Steve continued. “I know I can be judgemental at times. But I will listen if you want to, or find you someone who you want to talk to. I know it's difficult to go through this alone.”

“Thank you,” said Natasha, giving him a small nod. “I will think about it.”

She left after that, taking the tablet with her, but Steve remained. He wanted, so much, to go to Bucky's room and tell him the brilliant news, but not only the fact that he had promised Natasha he would keep her secret stopped him; there had been something haunted in her eyes, something about her panic when she'd first seen Bucky, that told him he'd need to tread carefully there.

When he returned to his room, Loki's eyes were shining in the semidarkness.

“Come back to bed,” he demanded grumpily. “Aren't you supposed to be keeping me warm?”

“Right away, Your Highness,” Steve said with a smile, taking off his shirt. “I was just talking to Natasha.”

“I don't care,” Loki muttered. “Her mission cannot have been any more harrowing than mine.”

“Mm,” said Steve, getting into bed and manfully silencing a scream when Loki's cold feet twined with his own. “Will you tell me what you were doing?”

Loki stilled.

“You would not understand,” he said after a moment. “And you may not approve. I will tell you some day, but not today.”

“I see,” sighed Steve.

“I can tell you I did not start a war,” Loki offered brightly.

“Was it an option? That's reassuring,” said Steve, stifling a smile against Loki's bare shoulder.

They lay still in the warm darkness of their bed for a few minutes.

“I am here,” Loki said after a while, his tone soothing. “Your friend is here. All is well now.”

Yes, thought Steve, closing his eyes; having Loki and Bucky and The Avengers was more than he'd ever hoped to have.

Such optimism lasted until the next morning. Steve had prudently decided to let Loki sleep in and wake on his own terms, and was in the kitchen, making breakfast for himself and whoever decided to join him, when Tony drifted in.

“Coffee, for the love of this beautiful country,” Tony rasped out.

“You didn't sleep again last night?” asked Steve, pouring a cup for him.

“Who needs sleep when there is work to be done?” Tony greedily held out his hands for the cup and heaved a deep sigh when he took his first sip of coffee. “So, Natasha is back?”

“Yes,” said Steve. “Why, have you seen her?”

“No, but JARVIS informed me that someone had erased all records from this kitchen from eight to eleven PM, so I figured she'd come back.” Tony gave him a shrewd look over the rim of his cup and Steve averted his eyes.

“Ye-es,” he admitted. “We were talking here for a bit last night.”

“Talking, huh? You better be careful, Cap, we wouldn't want Loki to get jealous. The property damage alone, God, just imagine...”

“I bet Loki knows better than to think he has a reason to get jealous, Stark,” said Bucky, walking into the kitchen and slapping Tony on the back with his metal arm. Coffee sloshed onto the floor and Tony swore.

“You haven't even met the guy yet, Barnes,” said Tony, stepping away from the spill. 

“I will soon enough. Won't I, Steve?” said Bucky cheerfully. “And, anyway, he's Steve's soulmate, and Steve is happy. He can't be doing that bad a job.”

“Forget going back to work, I'm staying here until His Highness deigns to get up and come meet us plebs. I'm not missing this for the world.” Tony took a seat on one of the kitchen stools and imperiously held out his now-empty cup for Steve to refill.

Steve did so before turning back to the stove and getting started on an omelette. Surely Loki would behave? Surely Tony wouldn't be patient enough to hang around for long? Surely Bucky's suspiciously cheerful demeanour would last? Surely a timely supervillain would come up with something to derail the disastrous breakfast?

“Good morning.”

Steve jumped. He'd momentarily forgotten about Natasha.

“Morning,” drawled Tony. “Here for the show? You can have first pick on the over/under for how long the kitchen will take to be rebuilt after this.”

Natasha just smiled and went to stand next to Steve.

“So, Natasha, this is my friend, James Barnes. Bucky, this is Natasha Romanoff,” Steve said, hoping to sound somewhat normal; judging by Tony's look, he didn't quite make it.

“Hello,” said Natasha, nodding at Bucky.

“Ma'am.” Bucky raised his hand as if to tip an imaginary hat, and Steve smiled; his friend would be working hard to erase the negative impression he thought he'd given the night before.

“Yeah, yeah, cute, but clear the floor for the main show, will you?” grumbled Tony.

Steve was glad that making breakfast and watching Natasha and Bucky like a hawk distracted him from Loki's impending appearance. He was also glad that Thor was off 'assisting' Doctor Foster with her research and Clint hadn't returned from Alaska; two years and several joint missions later, the Avengers still had trouble dealing with Loki in a domestic setting.

Tony was in the middle of telling Bucky about the latest Stark project when Loki's amused voice drifted into the kitchen.

“And I thought Victor Von Doom was self-aggrandising,” he said from the doorway.

“Good morning, princess,” Tony replied, baring his teeth.

But Loki wasn't looking at him. He was looking at Bucky and smiling, a small, sly smile that made Steve frown and Natasha stand up, ready to move between Loki and Bucky (a great act of bravery on her part, because Steve knew she was still wary of Loki and what he was capable of doing when angered).

“Sargent Barnes,” said Loki, offering him a small bow.

“... Loki,” replied Bucky, frowning slightly and sitting back on his chair.

Steve looked from his best friend to his soulmate.

“Have you two met before?” he asked, even though he knew it was a stupid question.

“I am exceedingly glad to see that you are back amongst the living, sargent,” Loki continued, glancing quickly at Steve and giving him a more genuine smile. “Steve is overjoyed at your return and I can but hope that he remains this way.”

“Wow, that sounded almost unthreatening,” commented Tony. “Well done, Loki. We may not be looking at kitchen renewals after all.”

Both Natasha and Steve were watching Bucky, who looked a little more surprised than circumstances seemed to warrant.

“Yeah, I'm glad to be back too,” said Bucky slowly. 

“What's going on?” asked Tony, picking up on the mood and looking at Bucky too. “This isn't the spunky Bucky Barnes we're used to. Loki, what have we told you about brainwashing people before being introduced?”

“Don't be ridiculous, Stark,” said Loki airily. “Whose should Sergeant Barnes' mind be but his own?”

Bucky shook his head.

“Shut up, Stark,” he suggested, sounding more like himself. “And Loki, nice to meet you. I assume I don't need to have a conversation with you about your intentions towards Steve?”

“Start calling the building crew, JARVIS,” said Tony.

“You assume correctly, sargeant. Also, I won't destroy the kitchen until I have had breakfast,” Loki said magnanimously, reaching for the coffee pot.

Steve and Natasha exchanged a look. There had been something off about Bucky and Loki's first interaction, and not in the explosively antagonistic way they had all been expecting. Though now the atmosphere in the kitchen was positively pleasant, there was something in the tense set to Bucky's shoulders and the sharp edge to Loki's smile that didn't bode well.

“So, princess, are you staying for long?” asked Tony.

“Your hospitality is as inspiring as your manners, Stark. The dear Miss Potts must be exhausted of apologising on your behalf.”

“Don't bring Pepper into this and I won't hold against Steve the creep he has as a soulmate,” Tony snapped.

“You won't win the bet if you're the cause the kitchen needs to be rebuilt,” Natasha intervened, helping herself to some fruit.

“Are they always this friendly?” Bucky asked Steve with a smile that didn't reach his eyes.

Steve wanted to answer with a joke and a rueful laugh, but he was uneasy, so he just shook his head and pushed away from the stove. Loki turned away from taunting Tony to give Steve a questioning look, then followed him right out of the kitchen, letting Tony have the last word.

“Is everything well?” Loki asked when they reached Steve's room.

“I don't know,” Steve said, staring unseeingly at the wall. “Something is up with Bucky.”

“I can imagine that adjusting to the present reality must be difficult for him.” 

Something about Loki's calm tone caused Steve's patience to snap. He turned around, hands balled up into fists.

“I don't like saying this, but you're not usually this understanding.”

Loki's eyebrows rose.

“And you're not usually this curt,” he replied.

“I don't usually have cause to suspect that you have been messing with my best friend!”

“I see,” said Loki, and his face was now the blank, polite mask that he'd used with Steve before the discovery of their soulmate markings. “I may have made a mistake.”

“Will you just...?”

But Steve's question went unfinished an unanswered, because Loki had disappeared from the room with barely a shimmer of magic to mark his departure.

Steve sat on the edge of his bed and took a deep breath. He was angry and worried and now he felt guilty too. He hadn't meant to accuse Loki like that, but Bucky's reaction to seeing him in the kitchen had been too obvious: something had happened between those two that they'd both wanted to keep a secret from Steve. Surely, knowing Loki, it couldn't be anything good.

There was a knock on his door. Steve stood up and squared his shoulders; it was time to press Bucky for the answers Steve had been too soft to demand before.

But it wasn't Bucky on the other side of the door: it was Natasha.

“Tony has taken Bucky to the lab to do more tests on his arm,” she told him. “Can we talk?”

“Yes, of course. Here, or...?”

“Here, just give me a moment.”

Steve stood by the door and watched how Natasha efficiently disabled more monitoring devices than Steve knew existed in his room. Once she was satisfied with the level of privacy they had achieved, she leant against Steve's desk and gave him a serious look.

“Did Loki leave?” she asked, not sounding surprised.

“Yes,” Steve answered, and didn't ellaborate.

Natasha nodded.

“What do you know about my past?”

“Erm, not much,” said Steve, thrown by the change in subject. “I know that you used to work as a spy for Russia, but...”

“I was trained from a very young age as part of the Black Widow Ops, in a facility called the Red Room,” Natasha explained. “We weren't just spies and assassins. We got to serve a test subjects for techniques like brainwashing, experimental physical enhancements, bionics, and cryogenics.”

Steve frowned; that sounded awfully familiar.

“Are you saying...?”

“I met Bucky there,” Natasha told him, looking at him in the eye. “I didn't know his name then. No one did. They called him the Winter Soldier. He helped with my training. I recognised him right away that day, in the kitchen.”

Steve exhaled and sat down heavily on the edge of the bed.

“Are you sure? How long ago was that? The Russians said they only recovered him one year ago.”

“This was...” Natasha hesitated. “That was longer ago than that. But it was him, I'm sure.”

“He knew you from before? But if he had rememebered you, you'd have noticed. You've seen him, he's an awful liar.”

Natasha nodded.

“I've seen his files. He doesn't seem to remember anything between World War II and being revived one year ago. But I know that he spent at least part of the time in between with the Red Room. He was one of their best operatives.”

“Damn,” sighed Steve. “So, what happened that he wound up here again, without his memories?”

Natasha opened her mouth to reply, then closed it again.

“Say it,” Steve told her. “Whatever it is you're suspecting, say it.”

“Loki.”

“Loki?” Steve repeated. “Damn it.”

“It makes sense. We've seen that Bucky recognised Loki. And if someone is capable of erasing a man's memory and manipulating him, it's Loki.”

Steve swallowed a denial past the knot on his throat and stood up.

“Well, Loki isn't here, but we can ask Bucky. Surely the two of us will get some answers out of him.”

Natasha nodded sharply and followed Steve out of the room.

“Greetings, earthlings,” said Tony without looking up when they entered his workshop. “Do you want to see something awesome?”

Steve exchanged a look with Natasha; Bucky, whose arm was connected to a series of wires, shot them a glance that didn't want to be apprehensive but was.

“Stark, clear out for a minute,” said Natasha.

“Excuse me? Are you kicking me out from my own workshop, in my own building, in...?”

“Yes,” Natasha said curtly.

“Please, Tony,” Steve said as Tony turned to him to protest. “Could you give us a minute?”

“We-ell, since you ask so nicely...” Tony gave an apologetic shrug to Bucky. “Sorry, pal, you're on your own. JARVIS, shut down surveillance of this room while Black Widow is here, will you? Easier than have her poking at you later.”

Tony walked out, followed by Natasha's suspicious look. Then, they were alone with a Bucky whose cocky smile couldn't quite conceal his apprehension. Steve looked at Natasha and she nodded at him; it was the good cop's turn to speak first.

“Bucky,” Steve said after taking a deep breath. “Have you met Loki before today?”

“I told you I don't remember anything about what happened, buddy...”

“Don't lie to me,” said Steve, and his voice almost broke. “Please, Bucky, don't lie to me about this.”

Bucky looked away.

“Loki brought you back,” Natasha said, her voice low and deadly. “We know that much.”

“No you don't,” Bucky replied, looking at her.

“Yes, we do.” She met his eyes and held them for a minute that felt eternal to Steve.

Bucky looked away first, hanged his head and sighed.

“I'm sorry,” he said, lifting his head just enough to look at Steve. “I'm still finding it hard to believe it really happened at all.”

“What happened?” asked Steve; his stomach was a churning mass of dread, and he leant against the edge of a table for support.

“I don't remember anything from falling off that train until they got me out of that coffin-fridge thing. My mind's just blank, except... at some point, there were two voices. Just that. Two voices, haggling. I could tell they were haggling, but I don't think I understood the language. It was all so much like a dream that I thought that was what it was. Until just now.”

“One of those voices was Loki's,” said Natasha.

“One of those voices was Loki's,” agreed Bucky. “But I didn't know it was him until this morning. He didn't exactly take the time to introduce himself.”

“Loki brought you back.” Natasha approached Bucky, fascinated. “Why?”

“Why, doll, you think he tells me things?” Bucky grinned bitterly at her. “He only said one thing to me then, and you heard him this morning.”

“What did he say to you that time?”

Bucky hesitated again.

“He told me he was giving me a gift.”

“Bringing you back?”

“No.” Bucky shook his head. “That was a gift for someone very different.”

Steve noticed then that his old friend was looking straight at him.

“Me?!” he asked. “You think it was a gift for me?”

“Who else?” Bucky shrugged in exasperation, and the wires hanging from his arm rustled. “Come on, Steve, he's your soulmate! Other guys bring chocolates or roses, yours brings your old friend back from the dead, what's the difference?”

Natasha raised one eyebrow but nodded, as if it made sense.

“It is Loki,” she said. “It does sound like something he would do.”

“But why would he erase Bucky's memory if all he wanted was to bring him back?”

Natasha didn't answer. Bucky looked between them, then faced Steve.

“You're sure he tampered with my brains, then.”

Steve looked at Natasha, then back at Bucky. He was deeply uncomfortable in the minefield of secrets and lies he found himself in.

“Yes. We're pretty sure you were around in the time you say you don't remember.”

“What was I doing?”

Both Bucky and Steve were looking at Natasha now.

“I'm going to need clearance before I answer that, and not only from Fury,” she said, avoiding both their eyes. “I'm also going to need answers from Loki.”

“Don't we all,” sighed Steve. He felt so tired all of a sudden; the warm quiet from the night before seemed like a dream.

They left Bucky, still tangled up in wires, at Tony's tender mercies. Outside of the workshop, Natasha paused and looked at Steve.

“I'm going to talk to Coulson,” she said. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” said Steve, because he was, really. “Let me know what you decide. If you want me to be there when you tell Bucky, I will.”

Natasha nodded and seemed on the brink of saying something else, but she just shook her head and walked away, leaving Steve standing there in the hallway, unsure of where to go.

For someone who'd been a super-villain a couple of years before, Loki was awfully non-confrontational unless cornered. This was far from the first time that he'd disappeared after they'd had a fight, and every time it drove Steve crazy, that Loki fled to where Steve couldn't follow and left him to stew in his anger until it morphed to worry and he welcomed Loki's return.

He'd done that even before they'd got together, so really, Steve should have known what to expect.

But now it hurt more because it wasn't just Steve involved, it was Bucky too, and Bucky had been through too much to now have his mind ransacked by someone whom Steve hoped could be his friend one day.

That was a selfish thought, so Steve tried to banish it by getting to work in the surveillance reports that had been sitting in Tony's inbox for a week. Thoughts kept interrupting his earnest inspection of surveillance footage; thoughts of what Bucky might have done that made even Natasha (ruthless, uncompromising, brave Nastaha) look uneasy; thoughts of the weariness that appeared in Bucky's eyes when he was left to his devices for too long; thoughts of how many comrades they'd lost already and to what lengths Steve would go to not lose Bucky again.

Lunchtime came and went; Tony and Bucky didn't emerge from the workshop, and Natasha didn't return. Steve ate a sandwich at the kitchen counter, then went to the gym for a workout.

Night fell. There was still no sign of anyone else. Steve showered and went out into the terrace, holding a book he didn't intend to read.

It must have been nearly nine when Natasha poked her head into the terrace.

“Waiting for Loki?” she asked, and didn't wait for an answer. “Fury is not sure about disclosing Barnes' past. I can wear him down with time, but it would be easier if he found out some other way.”

The only other way was Loki, who'd been gone for more than twelve hours, still weakened from his last outing. Steve felt his shoulders slump, but he nodded at Natasha and watched her go.

He could do nothing but wait.

It was almost midnight, and he was desultorily leafing through his book (a biography of Tony that Clint thought it'd be funny to give him) when the chilly air in the terrace grew warmer. No matter how many times they fought, it always touched Steve that Loki went against his nature to provide some comfort to him.

“Hey,” he said, and just like that he almost forgot how angry and worried he'd been all day. “Are you alright?”

“Is that really what you want to ask me?” asked Loki haughtily.

Steve sighed. Alright, then. Straight to business.

“What did you do?”

“I tried to be kind,” answered Loki. “A mistake, to be sure. I have no talent for it.”

He held out a vial, filled with a murky, greyish substance.

“What is it?” Steve asked, reaching for it; he felt like he should address Loki's previous comment, but he'd learnt that the war against Loki's self-hatred was going to be long and that sometimes his well-meaning reassurances meant a setback.

“Sergeant Barnes' memories.” Loki looked at the vial thoughtfully. “Had I been truly kind, I would have destroyed them instead of keeping them.”

Steve held onto the vial more tightly, just in case Loki decided to try his hand at kindness again. It was a cruel thought, but it was true that Loki didn't do kindness very well. Lack of practice, thought Steve loyally.

“Is it that bad?” he asked. “What Bucky did while I was in the ice, is it that bad?”

“Yes,” answered Loki without hesitation. “And what he might do once he remembers will be worse still.” Loki looked up and met Steve's eyes. “It is your choice, but I would take responsibility for it if you wish. Tell them I destroyed it, lay the blame on me, let them hate me, I don't care. But this will hurt him, and it will hurt you too.”

“Is that why you did it, why you hid this from me?”

Loki looked away and sighed.

“When I meant to be cruel, I brought you friends and a team and a purpose. When I meant to be kind...” He shrugged.

“This isn't my choice,” Steve said. “It's Bucky's. It’s his mind, his memories. I'll talk to him.”

“I'll go with you.” Loki stood up as well. “If nothing else, Sargeant Barnes will have need of someone at whom to vent his anger.”

“Loki.” Steve waited until his soulmate paused and looked at him. “Thank you. For bringing Bucky back, and for trying to make this easier on both of us.”

“Don't thank me yet,” Loki said, walking inside.

Natasha was discreetly prowling the living room. She took one look at Loki and one at the vial in Steve's hand and nodded.

“He's in the kitchen,” she said, and followed them there.

Steve thought half-jokingly that maybe they should do this somewhere other than the kitchen, where Pepper had put on display a collection of fancy ceramic knives, but then Bucky looked up from the beer he was cradling and gave them a humourless smile.

“Come to give it to me, huh? Got clearance to tell me what's going on with my own brain?”

“Actually, no,” said Natasha. “But Loki here is not bound by S.H.I.E.L.D. regulations.”

Bucky looked at Loki, unimpressed. Loki smiled back, all teeth.

“You're going to regret this,” said Loki.

“Yeah? Let me be the judge of that. What exactly is it I'm going to regret?”

Steve decided to intervene. This was the explosive antagonism he'd been expecting of his soulmate and his best friend on their first meeting. Now, it seemed idiotic to have worried over breakfast.

“Loki, as we'd guessed, brought you back,” he said, thinking whether it would be too obvious to stand between Loki and Bucky just in case. “He also took your memories, but here they are. He's brought them back, and if you think you want them, then you can have them.”

“Of course I want them, they're my memories, why wouldn't I?” Bucky turned to Loki again. “And who the Hell do you think you are, messing around with my brain? I was going to give you props for doing this for Steve, but--”

“I gave you a gift,” said Loki between gritted teeth, each word a curse. “And if you had any sense, you would take it and be happy with it.”

“That was your gift?” Bucky asked. “Messing around in my head? Fucking Hell, and here I was thinking Steve had it made--”

“Bucky,” said Steve, who had come to learn that invoking his name in fights got Loki more incensed than anything else; sometimes S.H.I.E.L.D. didn't even have to do any clean-up, villains had been so well-vaporised.

“I gave you a gift,” Loki repeated. “And now I'm giving you a warning. You would do well to take heed.”

“Oh yeah, smart guy?” Bucky gave a step forwards and grabbed Loki with his metallic arm. “Tell me, if these were your memories, what would you do?”

“I'd think of Steve first,” replied Loki, baring his teeth but not yet fighting off Bucky's hold on him though Steve knew there'd be kitchen renovations in their future.

That answer seemed to throw Bucky off for a moment. Steve could feel Natasha looking at him, impressed.

“Guys, come on, calm down,” he attempted, though he knew it was futile at this point.

“Give me my memories back.”

Loki's eyes met Steve's over Bucky's shoulder for a moment, and then he shrugged and stepped back as if it had been effortless to extract himself from Bucky's hold.

“Here,” Steve said, giving Bucky the vial.

Bucky's metal hand curled carefully around the glass.

“Before you take it--”

“You too, Steve?”

Steve held up his hands defensively.

“I just wanted to say, I'll be here, alright? No matter what you remember.”

For a moment, Steve thought that his encouragement would make Bucky reconsider where all of Loki's antagonising hadn't, but his friend just nodded quickly and uncapped the vial.

“Here's looking at you, doll,” he said, toasting Natasha before knocking back the whole thing.

One moment, Bucky was standing next to the counter, face scrunched up in distaste at the flavour of his memories. The next, the vial slipped from his grasp and he was looking at Steve like he'd never seen him before.

Bucky leapt across the counter and was across the kitchen in a second, but Loki was faster. Steve felt a sharp pain at his side, and he looked down to see that the carving knife Bucky had chosen had impaled Loki so thoroughly that the tip had come out of his back and managed to graze Steve's side.

With a pained roar, Loki managed to shove Bucky away from Steve and staggered after him; soon, the two of them were wrestling in the kitchen floor, tiles splattered red with Loki's blood.

“I can't get a clean shot!” Natasha snapped, and Steve realised he should do something because his best friend had just tried to kill him, and his soulmate was horrifically injured and yet still fighting.

“Always nice to know I was right,” panted Loki, his teeth stained with his own blood, and then he and Bucky were gone, leaving nothing but streaks of red on white tile and a long, bloodstained ceramic knife.

 

***_________________***

 

Surveillance footage of the kitchen had to be slowed down to almost a twentieth of actual speed for anyone to be able to catch Bucky's movements. Even then, Loki was just a blur, but it was obvious from his posture while watching Bucky drinking the contents of the vial that he had expected what had happened after.

“He tried to warn me,” Steve told Thor, as they reviewed the footage again. “Why can't he never just say what he means?!”

“Aye, I have often heard the same complaint.”

The Avengers had assembled after the attempted murder of their leader, but there weren't really any leads to chase. It turned out that S.H.I.E.L.D. had suspected the return of Bucky's memories would also bring back the brainwashing he had been subjected to under Russian influence, which was why they hadn't been keen on Natasha explaining the situation. Instead of blaming Loki, Coulson cast a disappointed look on Steve and went to try and do damage-control.

Nothing changed the fact that Bucky was now a brainwashed menace with a robotic arm which rivalled the Hulk in strength, that Loki had been run through with a knife (only a day after coming home exhausted and battered, at the limit of his resistance), and that a day had gone by and they had heard nothing from either of them.

He remembered what Loki had done the last time Steve's life had been threatened (which he only knew from forensic reports, and still made Natasha flinch warily whenever it seemed Loki would lose his temper). He feared for Bucky's life, and he feared for Loki's life, and he didn't know what he would do should either of them kill the other.

“Worry not, friend Steve,” said Thor, putting a heavy hand on his shoulder. “I will return to patrolling through Loki's favoured haunts to see if we can learn of his location.”

“I'll go with you,” Steve decided, standing up.

“But your injury...”

“Was barely in need of stitches, thanks to Loki.” Steve tried to smile at Thor, appreciating his protectiveness even as it rankled. “I can't stay here and do nothing. If they need my help...”

“I'll go too.” One day, Steve wouldn't be surprised when Natasha appeared at exactly the right time, but today wasn't that day.

“But...” Thor started to say.

Steve didn't say anything. It was Bucky, and even if Natasha wasn't ready yet to come to terms with the appearance of her soulmate, it would be unfair to ask her to wait behind when he was going.

“Barnes tried to kill Steve, might still be trying,” Natasha said. “Do you remember what Loki did last time that happened?”

Thor nodded sombrely.

“It is entirely possible Loki might be moved to put down Sergeant Barnes like a rabid beast,” he admitted, and Steve winced at his lack of tact.

He wanted to believe that Loki wouldn't kill Bucky, that he'd restrain him until he came up with a way to fix what had happened. Then again, Loki already had gone through the trouble of bringing Bucky back, taking away his memories, and giving them back. It was entirely possible his kindness had ran out; for Loki, Steve's safety was paramount.

“We need to find them before Loki resorts to desperate measures, or Bucky overpowers him,” Steve decided, feeling a smidgeon better now that there was something he could do; he still couldn't forgive himself for the crucial seconds of stunned immobility in the kitchen that night. “Thor, where do you propose we start looking?”

“I have interrogated as many of Loki's former contacts as I have been able to find,” Thor replied, and Steve and Natasha exchanged a look; Thor's interrogation methods usually involved a great deal of Mjolnir. “He has hide-outs in Nifleheimr, Alfheimr and some uninhabited parts of Asgard, but they sit empty and unused. Heimdall cannot see him, as has always been the case.”

Steve frowned.

“He just came from Hel,” he remembered.

Thor turned to him.

“From Hel? That is not possible, why would he...? Oh. That's where he retrieved Sergeant Barnes from, then.”

“What is Hel?” asked Natasha. “Could he be there now?”

Thor shook his head, but he seemed unsure.

“Hel is the realm of the dead, and the living are seldom welcomed there. However, Loki has an arrangement with its ruler, and if he made a deal with her to bring Sergeant Barnes back, well... 'tis certainly a place where no one would find him.”

“So, you're saying Loki took Barnes back for a refund?” asked Clint, who had apparently been napping on armchair this whole time.

“He also said he had moved a star,” said Steve slowly. “JARVIS, can you check if any stars have changed position in the last couple of weeks?”

“You can't move a star,” came the muttered voice of Bruce Banner through the channel to Tony's workshop that had apparently been open all the while.

“I will endeavour to do so, captain, but depending on the distance of said star from Earth, we might not notice the difference for a few million years.”

“So, Hel is our best bet,” Steve said, not willing to let anything get in the way of doing something.

“Going to Hel is a more than risky endeavour.” Thor looked unusually serious; coming from the man who had once jumped laughing into a nuclear reactor about to explode, this didn't bode well. “Like I said, it is the realm of the dead. Without magical protection, we might get there, but we will never be able to leave.”

“And our magical protection has fucked off who knows where,” Tony's voice reminded them.

“If we find Loki there, he can get us out, though.” Steve tried to not phrase it as a question.

Thor nodded.

“If he is not there, though...”

“We need more intel, then,” said Clint.

“You will stay here,” said Steve. “And Tony, and Bruce.”

He looked at Natasha while a chorus of protest went up around them.

“We can't leave Earth unprotected, even less for what is essentially a personal matter,” Steve said firmly. “If Thor or Natasha choose to go with me, they're welcome to do so, but the rest of you will stay here.”

“Is that a unilateral decision, Cap?” asked Tony.

“Tony, please. If something happens to us there, I count on you to find a way to bring us back, magic or no magic.”

“That's a tall order,” Tony complained, but he sounded pleased. Natasha gave Steve an approving look.

“Of course I will go with you, Captain,” Thor said. “You will need a guide, and I would not leave my brother in trouble.”

“Thank you, Thor.”

“I already said I'm in.”

“Thank you, Natasha. You understand the risks involved?”

“There's always a chance you won't come back from a mission,” she said with a shrug. “This one just has worse odds than most.” 

Steve thought they could use a more positive attitude, but his own stomach was a knot of worry. Usually, he would have sided with Clint, waited until they had more information to make a plan of attack and at least three contingency plans, but he needed to do something right away. After all, history seemed to support that improvised plans to rescue Bucky led to good results.

“We could go to Asgard first, request assistance there,” suggested Thor as they got ready to leave. “I know of no one other than Loki who has successfully completed a journey to Hel and returned, but there might be some books of lore--”

“We don't have time,” interrupted Steve, shaking his head. “Think of all the things that might have happened since they left.”

Think of Loki bleeding out while trying to contain Bucky so he didn't harm Steve, think of Bucky fighting the compulsion in his mind, think of them hiding in a realm so inhospitable that no one in Asgard's history has gone and returned, Steve didn't say.

Unfortunately, they had to take the Asgard Express, like Clint called it, to get to Hel, and that meant a stop in Heimdall The Gatekeeper's hold on the Bifrost.

“You are going to Hel,” said the Asgardian, hands on the hilt of his sword, the moment they arrived.

“We have reason to believe Loki might have taken Sergeant Barnes there,” Thor replied, generously not mentioning they were following Steve's gut-feeling and his inability to stay in place while both his soulmate and his best friend were in danger.

For a moment, Steve thought Heimdall would try to dissuade them.

“Eat not the food there if you intend to return, and drink not the water there lest you would forget yourselves.” The Gatekeeper nodded to a pile of things in the corner. “Take the provisions you need. And remember: the dead cannot touch you, but they can and will hurt you.”

“Have you been there?” Steve asked as they picked up water skins and trail rations.

Heimdall snorted.

“I value my life, and my sanity. So should you.”

“Loki was there,” Steve answered, nettled.

“Loki values his sanity and his life far less than he should,” Heimdall replied, reminding him with a look that he'd known Loki for centuries before Steve had come into his life; the look was also a reminder of how far Loki would go (literally and figuratively) to please Steve.

“Come on,” Natasha said, and the urgency in her voice warmed Steve. They would find Bucky and Loki, and they would fix whatever had gone wrong, and they would go back home and then he'd convince Natasha to talk to Bucky; they would be wonderful soulmates, the kind that legends were made of.

Travelling along (through? Over? Tony had never been able to explain it clearly) the Bifrost was always a disorienting experience, but the moment they arrived in Hel, Steve felt it in his bones. 

He'd lived through the Great Depression and World War II. He had been in poorhouses, battlegrounds, prisoner camps, field hospitals, and ground zero of several terrorist attacks, including Loki's attempted destruction of New York. Steve thought himself, if not inured to the horror of death, at least able to withstand it.

He was unprepared, then, for the way his breath froze in his chest as they arrived in Hel. They stood wrapped in heavy mist at the start of a thin path that went downhill, and the cold was a toothy, malevolent, palpable thing. He gripped his shield and moved closer to a shivering Natasha, unconsciously seeking the warmth of another living being.

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
... and that's all she wrote, folks! It's us and our imagination from here on.

(my imagination tells me that at the end of this there's an evening in Avengers Tower, a big sofa, an order of Chinese large enough to feed an army, and a TV where Nat is showing her soulmate, Steve, and Loki the best movies of the last 60 years, starting with 'The Princess Bride'...)

**Author's Note:**

> I am so sorry I couldn't finish this, you don't know. This is the fourth attempt, and in the last couple of years I've opened this file countless times hoping for the block to have passed, but nothing.  
> In any case, I appreciate anyone who has read so far and welcome any and all feedback!


End file.
